Some people have said that Labour nicks all the Tories best ideas, so the Tories are wise to keep their manifesto plans under wraps.

It certainly looks that way, after Post Office privatisation was taken up by Mandy, one waggish Tory MP welcomed Mandelson to the Thatcherite wing of the Conservative Party. An eagle-eyed co-conspirator draws attention to the document at Mandelson’s feet after he was gunged outside the Carbon Summit. It looks like the Tory environment policy paper.

Matthew Parris this morning says real men don’t Twitter, quite right, but that old faker Draper does, and his suspension from Twitter is getting loads of play around the blogosphere and on Twitter. Yesterday Guido went to some trouble to find out what really happened, twice putting it to Draper that his account was suspended and twice he avoided answering the question. Draper is not stricly denying his account was suspended, he is just arguing with everyone about it, with Clintonesque evasions, basically saying if he was suspended, he isn’t now.

Guido also called a source close to Twitter HQ in San Francisco. They confirmed that Draper’s account was suspended for abuse of the terms of service as reported. Draper pleaded with them for it to be restored in a “Do you know who I am?” way. They didn’t, nor did they care. They restored it anyway.

Dolly was suspended for spamming; James Graham says he has had mulitple Twitter spam follow/unfollows from Derek, which only ended when he finally followed Draper. Yet, despite this being widely attested to, Draper denies spamming people.

Derek is such a spinner, at no time has he admitted being suspended, nor has he mentioned that he begged Twitter to unsuspend his account. Guido has put the facts to him today. He has not as yet responded.

A largely united eurosceptic Tory party is going to finally make the break with the federalist EPP and take other like-minded parties with it into a euro-conservative grouping. This will enthuse the rank and file, make good Dave’s promise and undermine UKIP and Libertas, all in good time to make an impact on the June Euro elections. Labour will be looking to highlight splits – unless Clarke breaks his word they are unlikely to find any of significance.

So long as the Tories have the company of other governing parties from across Europe they will have succeeded.

Quote of the Day

“I read more bloggers now than mainstream columnists, because they’ve got more interesting things to say. Too many columnists today make you think, ‘Yeah, I think you’ve said that 10 times before and I’ve just noticed your column has not go a single fact in it’”.